A Simple Change Of Mind Was Not Enough

Having surrendered to the inevitability of this new perspective, implementing it was a very different thing.  No matter how much I studied or how hard I worked, some of these paradoxes still eluded me.  In other instances I seemed completely incapable of following even the most basic of instructions. 

Several people offered answers to many of these questions, but their solutions seldom reconciled.  Picking the proposed solution that made the most sense to me or that most quickly alleviated the resulting anxiety eventually proved ineffective.  I needed help.  I needed help from a source whose experience and authority exceeded my own and who proved more reliable than anyone else I knew at the time.  Little did I know that same Jesus already had provided just what I needed. 

Jesus promised to send me a helper.  Jesus called this helper the Holy Spirit and said he would teach me everything I needed to know.  (John 14:16-29)  This was going to lead to another problem, because some people (Jesus referred to them as "the world") would not be able to detect this Holy Spirit or become familiar with him.  (John 14:17)  The Apostle Paul warned us that these communications from the Holy Spirit would not make sense to people who did not know how to relate to him or discern his instruction.  (I Corinthians 2:12-16)  They lack the requisite capacity to be aware of or to sense whatever the Holy Spirit sees fit to communicate, leading to the understandable result that they would reject any conclusions based on the evidence He offered. 

Another problem lies in the fact that different people purport to receive apparently conflicting communications from the Holy Spirit at the same time.  This can happen even among the most accomplished of those who endeavor to follow Jesus and the Holy Spirit.  Chapter 15 of the Book of The Acts of the Apostles tells us how Paul and Barnabas could not agree on whether to take John-Mark with them on their second missionary journey.  The text does not tell us that the two men prayed or asked for the Holy Spirit's instruction.  Perhaps they did not do that.  Perhaps one of them did and the other did not.  Perhaps both did and perceived to have heard differing instructions.  The text does not tell us.  The text does tell us that an irritation or contention over this issue became so extreme that they elected to go their separate ways. 

As unverifiable as this help seemed to be, it was and is the only solution to my problem I have been able to identify as having been provided by Jesus and His Father.  I was going to have to learn how to develop a sensitivity to His communication methods.  Being wholly unable to explain - much less detect - this newly discovered presence in my life,  I had no other options.  I had to approach this Holy Spirit in the best way I could identify and ask His help.  I did not know how to ask His help, so I just did it.  I got down on my knees and asked this Holy Spirit to reveal Himself to me and to help me.  He did.  He continues to do so today, so long as I remember to stop and ask Him for his instruction and help.

I Had To Get A New Set Of Glasses

Without getting too bogged down in the details, I was having problems with the book they called The Bible.  Its local advocates claimed that God was somehow responsible for its contents and that He had chosen to reveal a part of Himself and of His will to people through it.  God did not appear be a very effective author because some parts of His book did not make sense to me.

The Bible claimed that God could not lie, yet certain of its passages contradicted what I knew for a fact to be true.  Other parts seemed to contradict one another.  If God can do anything, then how is it not possible that He might lie? 

Perhaps the most obvious example of The Bible's apparent flaws, to me anyway, was its claim that Jesus had said that it was more blessed to give than to receive (Acts 20:35).  In my seventeen vast years of experience, I never had found that to be true.  I always enjoyed receiving gifts.  I found even a modest amount of pleasure in receiving clothes for Christmas or my birthday presents.  I certainly found that more satisfying than than giving away anything. 

My simple mind offered only three possible solutions to this dilemma:  (1) Jesus was wrong; (2) The Bible had not accurately recorded Jesus' words; or (3) there was a very slim chance that I might not be one hundred percent correct.  The last of those options was the least likely to apply because I was absolutely certain of what I had seen, heard, felt and known up to that point and all of those things screamed to me that this part of The Bible had to be wrong. 

I was troubled by the obvious limitations exhibited by any deity who was not be able to maintain the integrity of his own publication.  Since by definition an all powerful being could not be subject to limitations,  that lead me to focus my attention on the unlikely integrity of the book itself.  If God by definition was not fallible, then it was impossible for Him to author a flawed book.  If any portion of The Bible was unreliable, then I could perceive no way to have confidence in any of it. 

There are few events I am likely to remember until my dying day, but this almost certainly is one of them.  I was driving home from work one afternoon stewing over this dilemma when the thought occurred to me, "Why don't you try it and see what happens?" 

For perhaps the first time in my life, I acted on a good idea.  I gave and I liked it!  Giving did not have to mean that I had lost something.  Done with the proper attitude it could be a rewarding experience.  So I elected to give some more.  The results have far exceeded the pleasant feelings the practice generated.  The list of benefits is extensive and far exceeds the purpose of the present post. 

The primary point is that I actually had been wrong!  Me?  Of all people!  As absurd as it seemed at the time, what I knew I had seen, heard and experienced was not necessarily the most reliable source of information for making some decisions.  If this change of approach had been able to alter the results in one decision making area of my life, was there a chance that it might impact other areas as well?  My experience since that date suggests that the answer is yes!

I had been experiencing the world through lenses that were filtering what really existed and were allowing me to see less than the entire picture.  I did not know what I did not know.  This was my first step toward trying to identify and discard my self-limiting filters.  The process continues so long as I will remain active and attentive to it.

I Was Stuck On Stupid.

My mother did not tell me that story until I was much older.  I had no idea what was going on outside of the limited capacity any teenage boy can muster.  I did not know what Jesus himself had told my mother, so how could I care?   


What I did know was that I was terribly frustrated.  I wanted to be a good person.  I took no joy in harming others.  I was by nature empathetic.  At the same time I was naturally inclined to act in the most selfish manner available.  None of that made sense to me. 

The culture where I had grown up told me that good people obeyed the ten commandments.  I had no problem during my early teens with things like murder, adultery or worshiping grave images, but some of the lesser crimes on that list seemed unavoidable. 

The people at my church told me that Jesus had an important part to play in my well being and that he had died in my place.  Some well-meaning bozo showed me a place in The Bible where Jesus said I would obey his commandments if I loved him.  (John 14:15 and 23, perhaps.)  No matter how hard I tried, I could not follow his simple instructions. 

Like Bre'r Rabbit, I'd already stuck myself to this particular tar baby and there was no way of letting go.  I found it impossible to improve my performance and equally impossible to ignore my dilemma.  This thing was impossible to understand but equally impossible to ignore.  I was absolutely unable to avoid a handful of meaningless activities that, according to this Jesus, demonstrated my ingratitude for what he had done for me. 

How could any good person behave like that? 

Something had to give.  Nothing would.

What happened to me? I was apprehended!

To this point we have endeavored to discuss the problem, its causes, and my participation in both.  Paul Simon probably said it best in The Boxer in 1968: "Still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest."  We filter what we see and hear, giving attention to what we are predisposed to like or to believe while vanquishing the balance to categories labeled "Ignore" or "Explain Away."  Most of us invoke that process without being aware (a) that we are doing it or (b) the values and processes we are using to differentiate these types of information.  We do not know why we tend to lend credibility to certain information types and sources.  We just do it. 

Having tried to explain most of the filters I had subliminally accepted as I began to enter adulthood, it seems fair that I explain the one intentional filter I have chosen for straining observations in order to get to the truth as best I can perceive it.  Here it is: I have been apprehended by Jesus Christ. (Ephesians 3:12)


I was not looking for this thing to happen.  Like many others, I had a general feeling that there must be something more to life than what I was seeing, but I had developed an expectation that whatever it was must be found in those things I had learned to value.  Perhaps my least selfish perception at that point was that this greater thing might lie in helping others attain the same things I had learned to value.  I was living my life, doing all the things I had come to enjoy doing, when Jesus confronted me and gave me a choice. 

Some recoil at the suggestion that a person has to make a decision to avoid turmoil in whatever form it might exist.  I do not perceive the choice I was offered in that way.  I think that perception is a misleading result of the misunderstanding I suffered (and that perhaps many others still suffer) before I made the choice I was offered. 

I now understand that my problem at the time was that I had no options - no choice - before Jesus apprehended me.  I was doomed to the limits created by those limiting filters I had placed over my eyes, ears, head and heart.  I had no choice before Jesus gave me one. I was doomed to keep doing what I always had done and getting the same results I always had gotten. I was stuck and did not know it. I did not know what I did not know.

Jesus came to me and, in his own way, said, "Follow me and I will show you a better way." 

I am not suggesting that I am a relatively good person because I made this choice, nor am I arrogant enough to believe that the choice was offered to me because I was a relatively good person.  On the contrary, none of this started with me. 

In fact, I was totally unaware of the first evidences of this part of the story when they took place.  God was moving before I even knew that He existed.  Unlike many powerful and influential people, God is a gentleman.  He does not force himself onto anyone.  He asks permission.  He appears to respect each person's "right" to be left alone.  He does not bust down the door like the SWAT team. 

God sends his son Jesus, and Jesus stands at the door and knocks.  Evidently he also respects parental rights, because that is where the part of the story I do know begins: with my mother.  My mother relayed this story to me years later. 

Sometime before I turned five years old I almost died.  How it happened does not matter.  That it did happen does.  My older brother and I were the only two children our parents had at the time.  My mother's baby was about to die.  My mother prayed in the hospital waiting room with the unselfish love that perhaps only a mother can truly experience.  She prayed to God for her baby's life.  God answered.

I did not see or hear any of this.  I was knocked out in an operating room with tubes running in and out of me to and from who knows where.   When my mother prayed, Jesus appeared to her.  He told her I was not her child but his.  Then my mother did what perhaps only a mother could do.  She said, "Yes, Lord," and gave me back to him. 

None of this had anything to do with any good or evil I ever had done.  None of the credit or the blame could possibly lie at my feet.  I was not aware of it at the time and my mother did not tell me about it until many years later.  Many years after I had told my mother that I had met Jesus, she finally told me this story. 

A reasonable and responsible person easily could conclude that a desperate young woman could imagine almost anything with her child at death's door in the next room.  I certainly would not blame you if that were your reaction to this part of the story.  I would not ask you to take my word - or even my mother's word - that this story is true.  I would implore you, however, to keep an open mind.  Please try to remember that you don't know what you don't know.  Please keep your mind open to the mere possibility that such an event really could take place.  For your own sake, please do not reject it until you have collected some more information. 

Remember that the best evidence available at the time taught men that the earth was flat well into the 15th Century.  Everyone believed that time was constant until Albert Einstein proved that what everybody knew to be true was false.  Many people who know that "the theory of relativity" exists do not understand that time one of that theory's non-constant things. 

Please, keep an open mind.  That's all I ask.  What could that really hurt, anyway?

"Glenn Beck is a racist."

       - All of Glen Beck's detractors every day since July 28, 2009 



"Barack Obama is a racist."

          - Glen Beck, July 28, 2009

I disagreed with Beck when he said that.  I still disagree with him.  But I have listened to Beck explain his position several times and I can understand (a) that he did not draw that conclusion without having some evidence to support it and (b) why he might have reached that conclusion.  I have no reason to believe that President Obama is a racist.  Even if he is one, what real difference would that make.  Would that totally discredit every other word the man said or every political or social idea he supported? 

I'm not really sure why Glen Beck's detractors in the media think he is a racist.  I honestly stopped listening to most of those people long ago.  I have listened to why some of my friends think Beck is a racist.  I can understand (a) that they did not draw that conclusion without having some evidence to support it and (b) why they might have reached that conclusion.  Even if he is one, what real difference would that make?  Would that totally discredit every other word the man said or every political or social idea he supported? 

What does seem (to me) to make a difference is that, rather than engaging in an honest discussion about the very real political issues facing our country the people on both sides of all of those issues waste their time and ours bickering about things like this that might not exist and would not make any real difference if they did. 

Another thing I've noticed is that all the people who articulate a belief that one of those two men is a racists will defend the innocence of the other man with equal vigor.  A similar dynamic seems to be present with respect to almost every one of the issues (both the important and the not so important issues) that exhaust our nation's capacity to talk about our political and social differences.  We seem so intent on demeaning our opponents and defending the public figures who purport to reflect our existing thoughts and feelings that we have no mental and emotional energy left to contemplate the wisdom of our existing positions, much less how we came to land in those particular places. 
It seems to me that an open-minded person who is sincerely interested in discerning and understanding the truth of things would ask herself or himself a number of questions after making these observations.  Some of the more obvious questions might include:
 
How can two groups of people with no apparent learning disabilities with equal access to the same information draw such remarkably different conclusions? 
 
Does that apparent paradox reflect a healthy condition in our society? 
 
What, if any, conclusions could be drawn by the vehemence and polarization that seems rampant within our society? 
 
What if any of my existing perceptions and conclusions am I unwilling to relinquish in order to accurately and objectively divine the truthfulness of any of these issues or questions?  For that matter, can any person ever find the truth if he or she is not willing to abandon any existing conclusion, perception or fundamental assumption that refuses to yield to objective observation? 
 

Those last two might be the most important questions any person must ask upon realizing that he or she does not know what he or she does not know.  Those likely also are the two questions most neglected by every person who comes to that realization.